On January 14, 1918—six years
before he began the world’s first experiments with liquid fuel rockets—Robert
H. Goddard wrote an essay called “The Ultimate Migration.” He asked a friend to keep it in his
safe, hidden in a sealed envelope labeled “Outline of Certain Notes on
High-Altitude Research.”
Illustration, “Exploring Harpalus,” by Chesley Bonestell
In this secret document, Goddard said
he “speculated as to the last migration of the human race, as consisting of a
number of expeditions sent out into the regions of thickly distributed stars,
taking in a condensed form all the knowledge of the race, using either atomic
energy or hydrogen, oxygen and solar energy… [It] was contained in an inner
envelope which suggested that the writing inside should be read only by an
optimist.”
It
would not appear in print until November 1972. In four pages of handwritten
manuscript, Goddard considered the eventual abandonment of the solar system by
humanity “when the sun and the earth have cooled to such an extent that life is
no longer possible . . .”
“Will it be possible,”
Goddard asked, “to travel to the planets which are around the fixed stars, when
the Sun and the Earth have cooled to such an extent that life is no longer
possible on the Earth?” Goddard hoped that the discovery of “intra-atomic
energy” would be the key. And if this proved to be impossible, he thought it
might “be possible to reduce the protoplasm in the human body to the granular
state, so that it can withstand the intense cold of interstellar space.” Bodies would have to be freeze-dried first, “before
this state could be produced. Awakening may have to be done very slowly.”
Goddard suggested that a special breed of human might be deliberately created
specifically for this purpose.
And if reducing humans
to a powder isn’t feasible, Goddard thought that “granular protoplasm,” might
be launched into interstellar space, “this protoplasm being of such a nature as
to produce human beings eventually, by evolution.”
If “intra-atomic
energy” could be harnessed, interstellar “transportation can be a comparatively
simple matter.” Near-light speeds would result in “a reasonably short trip.” For
the spacecraft, Goddard thought that “an asteroid or a small moon” might be
adapted. But after a journey lasting generations, what finally arrived at the
destination might not be fully human. “There is the possibility,” Goddard
wrote, “that after many thousands of
years, the characteristics and natures of the passengers might change, with the
succeeding generations.”
And if nuclear power
proves impossible, mankind would have to fall back on chemical fuels or solar
sails. Flights to distant stars, however, might take thousands or even millions
of years. The pilot of such a ship, Goddard suggested, “should be awakened, or
animated, at intervals, perhaps of 10,000 years for a passage to the nearest
stars, and 1,000,000 years for great distances, or for other stellar systems.”
A radium-powered alarm clock would be used for this. Energy for the various
operations of the ship would be produced by “radioactivity, rather than, say by
super-conductors, or by chemical substances that might change with time.
Probably most chemical substances would remain very inert at the low
temperature of space.”
And where would
Goddard’s colonists go? “The most desirable destination would be near a large
sun or twin suns,” he thought, “on a planet like the Earth.” A planet would be
selected that was in as stable an environment as possible, so that the human
race could continue its evolution. And a destination would be chosen from that
“part of the sky where the stars are thickly clustered, so that further migration
would be easy…”
“With each expedition,”
he wrote, “there should be taken all the knowledge, literature, art (in a
condensed form), and description of tools, appliances, and processes, in as
condensed, light, and indestructible a form as possible, so that a new
civilization could begin where the old ended.”
Will this ever happen? Goddard thought so. “The only barrier to
human development,” he was convinced, “is ignorance, and this is not
insurmountable.”
Chesley Bonestell art © Bonestell LLC
